Rocket attack causes injury
Following a rocket strike from Gaza on the western Negev that injured one, Israel’s air force struck three terror-linked sites in Gaza. The strikes early last Thursday morning hit a weapons manufacturing and storage site in central Gaza and two terrorism hubs in the northern part of the strip, according to the Israel Defence Forces. They followed a barrage of five rockets fired on southern Israel the previous evening, the IDF said. The wounded man was airlifted to a hospital in Be’er Sheva. A home in a kibbutz also was damaged. Residents of southern Israel were told to enter bomb shelters on the Wednesday night. “Escalation is only a matter of time. The threat in the area is constant and growing,” read a statement issued Dec. 9 by several southern Israeli regional councils. “The government must realize that this will be an active line of conflict for the foreseeable future.” About 200 rockets fired from Gaza have landed in Israel in 2010.
More Gaza exports approved
Israel’s security cabinet approved a measure to allow an increase in the exports of goods from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and abroad. The decision, approved Dec. 8, was made to help the coastal strip’s economy and “ease the burden of the Gazan population under the repressive Hamas terrorist regime,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. Gaza’s economy expanded by 16 per cent with a decrease in unemployment in the first half of 2010, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund. Gaza has been under a blockade from Israel and Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Israel has eased the blockade since June, allowing more civilian goods into the strip, but has continued to levy restrictions on construction material. “Parallel to these efforts to improve conditions of the Gaza Strip population,” the statement concluded, “Israel calls upon the international community to continue the blockade on the Hamas regime and to implement the policy of the international Quartet, and hereby utilize all means to prevent the continued strengthening and armament of Hamas and other organizations with missiles and weapons aimed at and fired at Israel’s civilian population. This continued armament contravenes international law, harms the interests of the Gazan civilian population and will harm Israel’s ability to continue to ease and improve the well-being of the people of Gaza.”
Anne Pollard in Israel
The former wife of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard was brought to Israel for assistance. Anne Pollard and her elderly father arrived in Israel on Dec. 6 after being found living in a one-bedroom apartment in New York in dire financial and physical need. Pollard reportedly called the Israeli Consulate in New York requesting help and saying she had not eaten in six days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, upon being apprised of the situation, ordered her to be taken care of. A special team set up to help Pollard will find her a permanent residence and a job in the coming weeks, according to reports. She served five years in prison for her role in the affair, and later moved to Israel, where she received a government stipend. Pollard later returned to the United States. “We have a moral and humanitarian obligation to Anne Pollard, who paid a heavy personal price of five years in prison,” Netanyahu said, according to Ynet. Jonathan Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying on the United States for Israel, divorced his wife in part so she could move on with her life. He remarried while in prison.